The Skeleton Ate Curry
by detectivejigsaw
Summary: One of the two certainties of life meets a frequent visitor. A silly little crossover with Discworld, but you don't necessarily need to read that to understand this.


"Oh, ow…"

Stan opened his eyes blearily-only to find himself surrounded by darkness filled with strange, echoey noises. For a moment he wasn't sure his eyes were genuinely open, until he blinked and realized that yes, they were.

_Hot Belgian waffles, I'm blind! What happened?! What's goin' on?!_

For a few seconds Stan's thoughts were paralyzed with icy panic; then a voice that sounded like the rumble of a coffin lid said to his right, **OH, IT'S YOU AGAIN.**

Stan whirled around, and saw a tall, thin figure standing there, somehow clearly discernible despite being dressed in some kind of black robe like those Blind Eye weirdos. He was holding the reins of a white horse in one long, bony hand. A horse that looked...different than any he'd ever seen before. I mean, Stan didn't have much experience with horses as it was, besides watching shows like _Grandpa the Kid_, but somehow this one looked way more...more _real_ than any horse he'd ever seen, and not just because it was there in person instead of on a television.

However, his attention was mainly focused on the assumed owner of the animal; namely the fact that the hand was bony in a quite literal sense, and now he was seeing past the hood to the face beneath, and the dark sockets in the center of it, empty except for two small specks of pale blue light…

Oh, **[CENSORED]**.

"...Are you-?"

It was a stupid question and Stan knew it, but in life there are some things that you just have to ask in certain situations.

**I GET ASKED THAT A LOT,** the figure commented, tilting his head to the side in an oddly human, thoughtful way.

Told you.

Stan gulped. He wasn't ready for this. He really, really wasn't ready for this, not now, not when he was finally getting some happiness out of life!

"Do-do I really have ta-"

**IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I'VE SEEN YOU,** the skeleton interrupted. **I'M SURPRISED, ACTUALLY-YOUR FAMILY AS A WHOLE SEEMS TO HAVE A PATHOLOGICAL INABILITY TO STAY OUT OF SITUATIONS THAT GIVE YOU THE OCCASIONAL NEAR-ME EXPERIENCE.**

Stan blinked. "'Scuse me?"

**GRANTED, I HAVE NOT HAD A NEAR-STANLEY PINES EXPERIENCE **_**OR**_ **A NEAR-STANFORD PINES EXPERIENCE IN ALMOST A MONTH; I CONSIDER THAT A NEW RECORD. I WAS BEGINNING TO WONDER WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO YOU TWO.**

"Okay, what are you talking about?" Stan hoped he wasn't beginning to sound like a parrot.

**WELL, SINCE YOU HAVE NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES, IT ONLY MAKES SENSE TO SAY THAT **_**I**_ **HAVE NEAR-**_**YOU**_ **EXPERIENCES. IT'S A WELL-KNOWN FACT.**

Stan processed this for a second. Then he asked, with the caution of someone who sees a light at the end of the tunnel but is uncertain if this means the sunlight of freedom or the incoming train of certain doom, "...So am I not dead? You said _near_ death. Not total death."

The skeleton shrugged. **IT'S A LITTLE EARLY TO TELL. EITHER WAY, I WAS PLANNING ON GOING TO THIS DELICIOUS CURRY RESTAURANT A FEW MILES AWAY WHEN I HAPPENED TO SEE YOU.**

"Curry restaurant," Stan said flatly. He was becoming more and more resigned to the general weirdness of the situation by the second.

The skeleton nodded. **ONE OF MY FAVORITE FOODS; IT'S LIKE BITING INTO A RED-HOT ICE CUBE.**

The echoing noises came again, louder and more frantic-sounding. Stan glanced at Death.

"You hear that too, right?"

The skeleton, however, was getting on the back of his horse, and didn't seem to hear him.

The next time the noise came, he started being able to actually distinguish some of it as parts of words.

"_St...ley...ca...ear...e? Wa...please…me on, knuck..."_

**IT SEEMS LIKELY THAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET ANOTHER EARFUL FROM HIM,** Death commented. Then, more hesitantly, **THAT IS THE CORRECT PHRASE, ISN'T IT?**

"Only for people who use nerdy phrases like that-ow!" A sudden, searing pain tore its way into Stan's chest, and he clutched at it with a gasp. He barely heard the parting words, **UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN, THEN,** and the clopping of horse's hooves galloping away…

* * *

Stan's eyes opened again.

This time, instead of darkness he saw a face staring down at him.

A frantic, worried face, wearing glasses with a small crack in the left lens, and eyes that were unusually bloodshot and frantic-looking.

As soon as they saw him, the bushy eyebrows above them relaxed from their previous scrunched-together position, and the rest of the face let out an exhausted-sounding exhale of pure relief.

"Good, Stan, that's very good. The antidote is working, that's great."

_Anti-ohhhh._

He remembered now: there had been a small...incident earlier, with some elves who'd turned out to be kind of hostile. Specifically they'd tried to shoot them with poison darts, and Stan had seen them coming before Ford did. So of course he did what any good brother would, and shoved his brother out of the way in the nick of time, so he was the only one who got hit.

And it seemed like Ford had just remembered that too, because he scowled at Stan and snarled, "This means that as soon as you're well enough I can kill you myself!"

_Looks like the skeleton was right._

"How could you?!" Ford demanded, slamming his fist down on the table. Stan realized that they were in their kitchen; Ford must have somehow gotten them back to the boat safely. "You could have just yelled 'Look out!' or pulled me out of the way, or _anything else_ that would have not involved you being shot by _six_ poisoned darts at once! Do you have any idea how close you came to-if I hadn't managed to-" His words crumbled in on themselves, and he began to blink rapidly.

Huh. His angry tirade was crumbling faster than Stan was used to. He really _had_ come close to death this time.

_No _duh_, knucklehead, you were just talking to him in person._

At the thought, Stan's face inadvertently split into the beginnings of a weak laugh.

"This is not funny, Stanley!" Ford, of course, completely misinterpreted the expression. "You-"

"I-I know, I'm sorry, Sixer," Stan croaked quickly. He still hadn't regained full use of his limbs, but he managed to twitch his hand in what he hoped was a pacifying gesture. "I just...wanted ta protect you. That's my job. I didn't think beyond savin' your hide. You know that."

Ford's lip trembled, but at least he seemed to have calmed down a little. "You're going to give me an ulcer one of these days." He accompanied the phrase by wrapping his hand around Stan's and squeezing tightly.

Stan squeezed back. And decided to wait until later to tell his twin that he had a sudden odd craving for curry.

* * *

**Like I said before, you don't need to necessarily read Discworld to understand this story. But you probably should. Because it's a beautiful series, referred to by many as similar to Douglas Adams, but for fantasy instead of science fiction. So if you're into surreal British humor, this is a beautiful thing to read. I recommend starting with either "Mort" or "Guards! Guards!" because those are when Sir Terry really got into his stride with figuring out the way the world worked. But hey, no pressure.**

***Noticed the long, unnecessary monologue about one of my favorite series***

***Awkward cough***

**I hope you enjoyed the story.**


End file.
